A youth in Donetsk handles a gun. The conflict in the region gave rise to a patriotic youth movement. A youth club set up by separatist authorities in Donetsk glorifies the Soviet past and aims to develop the newly declared republic.

Rossia Segodnya

September 10, 2015

A youth in Donetsk handles a gun. The conflict in the region gave rise to a patriotic youth movement. A youth club set up by separatist authorities in Donetsk glorifies the Soviet past and aims to develop the newly declared republic.

Raisa Shipulya, one of the last residents of the devastated village of Zhelobok, stands in her house.

Donetsk and Luhansk are two self-proclaimed, pro-Russian ‘People’s Republics’ in the Donbass region in easternmost Ukraine. A 2001 government census showed that 74.9 percent of the population in the Donetsk region and 68.8 percent of the Luhansk region have Russian as a mother tongue. In April 2014, a month after Russian forces had entered Crimea in southern Ukraine, pro-Russian separatists seized parts of Donetsk and Luhansk. The Ukrainian government launched a military operation in response, and over the course of the summer the conflict escalated into full-scale hostilities. In August 2014 (and again in February 2015) Russian forces gave active support in training and equipment to the rebels. A ceasefire was signed in September 2014, but was repeatedly violated before breaking down completely.

The photographer first went to Luhansk in the early summer of 2014, and witnessed conditions change as hostilities intensified. He believes that the most important side to any conflict is the third one: that of the ordinary people caught up in the violence. Civilians in Luhansk and Donetsk had to survive often without running water or electricity, under repeated shelling, experiencing the destruction of their homes and the deaths of friends and relatives.

Valery Melnikov

About the photographer

Valery Melnikov

Born in Nevinnomyssk, Valery Melnikov studied journalism in Stavropol, Russia.

Born in Nevinnomyssk, Valery Melnikov studied journalism in Stavropol, Russia.

His photographic career began when he started to work for The North Caucasus newspaper. For 10 years, he was a staff photographer for Kommersant publishing house and since 2009 for international news agency Rossiya Segodnya/Sputnik.

He has dedicated himself to documenting the political and social life of societies in conflict. Valery’s professional biography includes coverage of Chechen war, conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia, Lebanese war in 2006, uprising of Mali Republic, Syrian civil war. In 2014, Valery began documenting war in Eastern Ukraine. This work continues in his current ongoing project, Black Days of Ukraine.

Valery has received many awards for his work, including World Press Photo, Magnum Photography Awards, Pictures of the Year International, Sony World Photography awards, LensCulture Visual Storytelling Awards. His work has been exhibited in France, Austria, Italy, USA, Germany, UK, Russia and other countries.